


A Great Honor

by Guardian_of_Hope



Series: General Buir and Commander Ad [3]
Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Father and Son, Found Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, awkward clone, minor/offscreen character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-11
Updated: 2017-04-11
Packaged: 2018-10-17 14:49:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10596237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Guardian_of_Hope/pseuds/Guardian_of_Hope
Summary: Wolffe helps his General after bad news arrives, and their bond deepens.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Eventually, I'll get to where they're ACTUALLY admitting something, but that isn't today. It will come.

The _Liberator II_ was a good ship, Wolffe thought.  It even had been designed to include space where Wolffe could do his reports and guard General Koon’s office and mediation room.  That particular room had been designed to hold the atmosphere needed by the Kel Dor.  In that room, General Koon was able to remove his protective gear and go about his day in a home like environment.

That was a right Wolffe would protect violently if he had to.  And if that officious toady from communications didn’t stop trying to enter the Kel Dor’s office when the General had indicated he was meditating, especially without protective gear, Wolffe was going to shoot him and call it saving the man from his own suicidal tendencies.

Thankfully, the idiot had left and hadn’t been back since midshaft, which was probably when he’d gone to lunch and had realized that Wolffe was going to kill him for lunch if he showed up.

Not that Wolffe would actually eat another sentient, but he’d never seen the point in dispelling the rumor.  People actually acted in a timely manner if they thought that he had more in common with his namesake than a tendency to growl and snarl.

The airlock on General Koon’s office began to cycle open and Wolffe stood, abandoning his datapad in preparation of whatever need the General had.

“General,” Wolffe said and saluted as the General left the office.

“Wolffe,” General Koon replied with a nod, “At ease.  Have you been here all shift?”

“Went to lunch and walked the ship, sir,” Wolffe replied, “but I did have a number of requisitions to work through after our last engagement.”

“Do you ever take a day off?”  General Koon asked.

“Do you, sir?”  Wolffe countered, sure that he would get away with the pointed response.

“If your downtime is intended to coincide with mine, then that is an answer you already know,” the General said as he put his hands behind his back and regarded Wolffe.

Wolffe shifted uncomfortably under the gaze, wondering what was going through his General’s mind.

“Wolffe,” the General finally said, “I find myself in need of a friend this evening.  I would be honored if you would oblige me.”

It wasn’t the first time the General had said something like that, but it was the first time Wolffe honestly felt like the General was asking for his own sake and not for Wolffe.  It made the answer easy to give.

“Where would you like to meet sir, and when?”

“The officer’s wardroom,” General Koon said, “after dinner.”  He hesitated a moment, “Thank you, Wolffe.”

“You’re welcome sir,” Wolffe replied.

“Until then,” General Koon said and left.

Wolffe watched him walk away, then turned to shut down his datapad.  He’ track down the quartermaster later to ask some pointed questions about what they were expected to do with two thousand pounds of salt.  He felt restless and uneasy from the General’s behavior, and so he set off to walk the ship again.  Seeing his men in one place and generally healthy was a better activity than brooding.

He really didn’t need Boost and Sinker to teach Comet any more tricks about what to do with a brooding officer.  The not-so-shiny clone had been almost scary innocent when he showed up, and Wolffe was pretty sure if he left them alone much longer, Comet would have picked up every bad habit Boost and Sinker could show him.

Wolffe made a point to be seen in the mess eating one of the meat wraps that were being served before collecting hot water and supplies for teas and retiring to the officer’s wardroom.  He still wasn’t sure he approved of tea, but it made General Koon happy when it was on offering, so he went through the motions of making tea and filling one of the special bottles that would allow the general to enjoy the beverage without risking his safety.

General Koon arrived just as Wolffe moved to make a single serving of caff for himself, unwilling to test his patience for boiled leaves when he was already feeling so off balance.

“Evening, General,” Wolffe said quietly.

“Good evening Wolffe,” General Koon said before closing the door to the room.  “Please, it would be a kindness if this once you would call me Plo, Wolffe.  As I said, I need a friend tonight, not a subordinate.”

Wolffe bowed his head, “I’ll try, si- I mean, Plo.”

“Thank you,” General Koon said, sitting down.  “And thank you for making tea.”

Wolffe took his mug over to the table and sat down, deliberate choosing the chair beside the Kel Dor, “What to talk about it?”

General Koon was silent for a moment, then he looked at Wolffe, “They updated the casualty lists today for the Jedi.”

Wolffe winced, he hated that damned list, every time it showed up, it upset the General, but he couldn’t keep it from him.  Not knowing if someone you cared about was alive was worse than knowing.  He knew that fact intimately.

“Someone you know?”  Wolffe said finally, knowing one of them had to admit it.

“My Padawan,” General Koon said finally.  “One of them.”  He rested his hands around his mug of tea.

“Plo,” Wolffe whispered.  He’d seen some of the other Generals with their Commanders, how they treated each other with fondness and affection.  He’d seen General Koon when they’d teamed up with General Lissarkh for a campaign, how General Koon had clearly adored the Trandoshan Knight he’d trained.

“I undertook to complete the training of a Togruta Padawan named Reshian early in my knighthood,” General Koon said suddenly, “his master had been gravely injured in a hyperspace accident and was placed on the disabled roles.  While Master Ji was Reshian’s Master of record, I oversaw his missions for six years.  In many ways, he was my first Padawan.”

Wolffe kept silent, unsure of what to say.

“Reshian was killed by Dooku’s assassin while overseeing humanitarian efforts,” General Koon said.

“Ventress,” Wolffe said bitterly.  The witch had killed any number of clones in her quest for Jedi blood.

“Indeed,” General Koon said.  He took a sip of the tea, then put the mug down and turned to Wolffe.  “It has been a very long time since I have felt this angry, but hearing what this… being has done.”

Wolffe pushed back his own mug as he turned to the General, “I’m not sure what to say, Plo.  It shouldn’t be any surprise to you, but we clones get angry.  A lot.”

“I have noticed,” General Koon said.  “I think it more that I do not wish to be alone.”  He reached for his mug, “And perhaps to have a distraction, as your presence frequently is.”

Wolffe wasn’t sure if that was a ringing endorsement for his company, but he figured if that’s what the General wanted, he’d be distracting.  “Well, I do have something for you.  Apparently, someone is building a model of you and I, out of cloth scraps and glue in one of the storage rooms.”

He wasn’t going to admit he knew who, and he hadn’t let on to his men that he’d even seen it.

“How intriguing,” General Koon said.

“The catch,” Wolffe continued, “is that while you are true to life, the artist decided that it was more challenging to draw the me from when I was two.”

“Oh?”  General Koon asked.

Wolffe hesitated a moment, “Yes, and... it looks as if when it’s done… you’ll be carrying me.  The men call it, ‘General Buir and Commander Ad’.”

“Buir is, father, is it not?”  General Koon asked after a long moment, “And ad is son?”

“Parent and child,” Wolffe said, “yes.”  He reached for his mug for something to do, grimacing at the cooling taste of caff, but unwilling to reheat the cup.  Wolffe felt like he couldn’t breathe, that he was balanced on the edge of something unknowable.

“It would not be too much of a stretch,” General Koon said, in that impossibly soft voice that meant he didn’t expect to be heard at all.  “It would not be the first time I have thought another my child.”

“Sir,” Wolffe asked, then flinched.

General Koon looked at him for a long moment, “Let the artist finish his work, Wolffe.  Some levity in war is a good thing.”  He reached out slowly, letting Wolffe read his intent before he had rested his hand on Wolffe’s arm, “It should be no secret, my friend, that I have great affection for you not unlike that I experience with my Padawans.”  His hand tightened slightly, “I have no objection to being thought of as buir.  Yes, Wolffe, even by a clone.  In some, I would even say it would be a great honor.”

Whatever words Wolffe would have said, the words that Kamino had branded in the back of his mind, were silent for an infinite moment before they came rushing back.  But they weren’t as loud as they once were, and Wolffe had a feeling that if his Kel Dor General had his way, at some point, those words would never come back.

**Author's Note:**

> Do note that this is part of the Search, Rescue, and Retrieval universe, it's just that this is the third Plo and Wolffe story I've come up with and I felt that they should have their own series for people who just want Plo and Wolffe. (A family dynamic that is sadly not in abundance around here.)
> 
>  
> 
> Also, the Padawan is an OC. I kind of headcanon that in peacetime, there's one or two Padawans a year that end up needing a secondary Master, if not being flat out orphaned, because things happen.


End file.
